Bob Smallwood Part 8

Bob Smallwood Today on John Dash and Friends John sits down with one of his closest friends Bob Smallwood. A man whose music has touched lives across the mountains healing broken hearts and bringing hope to those who need it most. Together, they share a passion for reaching the lost and shining light in dark places. This is more than a conversation it’s a moment you won’t forget. We hope you enjoy this episode of *John Dash and Friends*. #JohnDashAndFriends #BobSmallwood #DashTv #DashTvNet #TalkShow #PodcastLife #InterviewSeries

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You didn't know him. He went to church God. He was so good. Yeah. And it used to be I I played the guitar with him. I I couldn't sing very good back then. But uh we we went one they used to hire us to go out to these old farmers, did, you know, these hillside farmers.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

And he'd built a new house and they once celebrated. So he said, Would how much y'all charge to come out there? And me and Von Junior Bowles and Junior was from down toward Jaeger. He's dead now. Bored in Bird, North Carolina. And Ed Roberts played the bass. Ed's gone. That was Jim Roberts' boy. You know, I'll get off the line just a minute. I went to preach up at Estel Collins church on top of Rock Ridge about 30 years ago or so. It was a church of Christ starring. They don't allow no music or nothing. But uh I was out early that morning. And there's a cemetery right beside it. When you get right up on top of Oosley Holler, that's Rock Ridge, and right there is the church on the right. And but the cemetery was right behind it was beside the church. And I walked through it, and John, I knew about every name as I went. And when I got to the very end, there was a marker, Jim and Victoria Roberts, and I thought, oh my, how many dinners have I had at their house? Jim and Victoria. Their boy Ed, the one played the the bass. But but anyway, I preached and I I remember that they had they had a stove in the back of the church. And and I got to preaching a little bit, and it's Edgewell was a wonderful guy, preacher. But his i i him and his wife at Oosley, that big bank fell in where they're building that school and buried them both. Gee. Yeah, I killed his wife, but they got Ezrael out alive. But anyway, I I loved them both. But anyway, uh I've been preaching about 10 minutes, and this lady came in late with a big old coat pulled around to there. It's cold winter, about 10 degrees. I'll bet you Sunday morning and come out in there and she went around that stove and sat there and I said, ma'am, you were late to church today. She said, I know, Brother Bob. She said, Well, I'm 90 years old, my ride didn't show up. And I live about five miles around the ridge, and I heard you was going to be here, and I walked. How many you gonna find like that? How many gonna walk like that? Yeah. Hallelujah. When I think of the church, of course, you yourself pastored a church for a long time, and and uh you had a radio station in Buckheim County. Uh now you've got a great television station, and you don't just say, well, this is for all business. People like old Bob, he's 85 years old, 86, my birthday, nobody ain't gonna want to hear him, but you let me come on here.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

And and I Well, I feel you're a forerunner, Bob, in in everything that we're doing, and that where I'm at and what we're doing. When you think about Christian radio, when you think about the AM and AM radio was the horse.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Oh, it was everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Okay, it was a horse, man. Everything you think about Forerunner and those type of things and what what all you've done out there on this, that's it's it's just powerful when we think about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

You know, I I I'd worked at WIC in Richland, I told you. Mm-hmm. A.m. 5 40 a.m. I still got my little belt buckles at 5 40 a.m. I'm gonna have to bring that and give it to you to hang up there because ain't none of them around. But anyway, my my uh wife's grandfather, Joe, he lived uh uh uh in war up on a hill above a service station or a house went just up to the right on the hill when you first got an out of war toward Brad you know, toward the There there's Roland uh farmer used to live up there. Oh, this is way before that now. Okay, before this is way on way on back. But anyway, they listened to me on the radio. An AM radio in Richlands, Virginia, and he listened to it. Yeah. And he'd smoked a pipe all the time, and he said, I'd give anything in the world if I could be on that radio. So I said, I want you to go with me. He said, You do? He went on that radio station with me, and that was a talk of the town of war.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I mean, we're talking way back there. He was on that, but of course he's gone now, him and his precious wife, Pearl. Uh so many people, like you say, that are gone. But I think of the music. I was gonna tell you about Von, though, real quick. You can shut me up in the case.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

No, you take your time.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

But me and me and Von, they they hired me and Von and Junior Bowles and and Ed Roberts, and uh Junior Bowles was a great banjo player. And now back then I couldn't sing a lick. Everybody said I couldn't, and I know they couldn't. But I kept trying. I'm I never give up. But anyway, uh they they hired us to go out there. I think we got a dollar apiece, is what uh I believe Bond asked him. Bon Thorne. Bond used to drink a little bit. Now he he was uh he's dead now, but he he belonged to the church of God and he was a good man. Right. Ain't nobody in this world that's perfect. I'm like you. I wished I thought of that setting a pair of shoes up there. I've got people I preach for. I'm gonna get me a pair and put them up there. These ain't his shoes. But any anyway, I remember one um, let me tell you real quick. First, I was uh I was saying a little one room schoolhouse on Slate Creek, and uh Vaughn, you know, I told you he drank. Oops, I'm gonna go. I'm sorry, you probably I'm probably not gonna go back to the city. No, no, no, no. He had a little court of moonshine he put in his long coat, and and uh and he got with his fiddle and fiddling around there, and you know how them little one room schoolhouses was. We was playing to raise money for somebody, and uh that thing somehow fell out of his coat when he reached down there, and we was up to this end, them schools go downhill, and that rolled like that, you know, and two deputies was there, they were watching that thing roll right on down, and one deputy picked it up and shook it a little bit, and it beated way up there for about 90 proof for a hundred. And he said, uh, I believe this is your water. Water. Bon said, Yes, sir, that's my water, and he put it right back in there. But anyway, we got out on that at that that house of play and music, and and Bond got a little bit inebriated, you know. They had built this house on the side of a hill almost straight down. And uh he had not yet built the front porch. Right. But he had the door there. So Von said, uh Bob, I got to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back. I said, I don't know if I got a bathroom or not. They didn't have none in the house. We know that, and it wasn't so well, I'll just go outside. So he opened that door and I heard a blood curdling scream. Wow! We went out and got old Bond. That must have been I bet as high as a ceiling here. And he was all right, though. You know when they say when people drink, another more hurt him. Well, it didn't hurt him. But it it was uh that that was in the old days. He later joined the church and was just a good Christian. Man, he played the fiddle in the church, the church of God at Bradshaw, where I got saved.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Man, you wouldn't ever hear a fiddle in the church in so long. But he played it.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

He played the fiddle and uh just a real good boy. That's that's all I can say about him. Just a real good boy. I would recommend him. Now, Junior Bowles died, and the banjo player, he he was a great guitar, lead guitar player too. Him and some of them boys, I don't remember who and all it was. Henry Couch played the guitar. Henry's still living down in Richmond. But anyway, they made a song, rock and roll song. And it got played all over the place. Uh there was a Thornsbury boy. Now I wasn't tired, I was gone somewhere. But there was a Thornsbury and Junior Bowls, and I forget who else. But it was a good song. You can still get it, uh, you know, on uh however you get them, you know. Uh you can you can go on the That's good one of them stations on on uh email and get it.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And uh you can hear actually hear them and got their names on it. I forget the name of it, what it was, but uh I'll think of it later on. But I wasn't here when they did it. But it was amazing the airplay they got.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah. I think, you know, uh man, when you think about those people and the pioneers, you know what I mean? The pioneers. And we have them today, they're doing things, but but I'm still we think about those things that we remember those people.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Well, I appreciate you remembering and and letting me bring back a few memories. You're making memories today and and and every day here. And I boy, I'm you got this podcast that is it really, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I think about you know, we interviewed and had uh Sheila used to do a program and my Morgan recorded it called On the Road Again. And we recorded a lot of people that are not here now, okay. And we think about like the Justice twins over at war. I don't know if you remember them, they cut hair over at war. Yeah. We've got interviews with them, and we think back on people, you know, from from you know twenty thirty.